Categories
Chinese

Toi Shan – Bendigo VIC Restaurant Review

I saw on the news that Toi Shan in Bendigo has closed its doors two days ago, ending its streak as the longest-running Chinese restaurant in Australia after 133 years, and I did not feel a single shred of sadness. Reading through the praise online from individuals as well as outlets like Fairfax’s Good Food really makes me doubt these people have actually eaten there, or if they’ve ever eaten Chinese food anywhere else.

I’m not generally in the habit of ragging on places I went to 9 years ago, but I remember the visit distinctly, have photographic evidence to back me up, and I figure that now that they’re closed forever it’s fair game.

I’m pretty sure we had the Shandong chicken, which doesn’t exist on the menu at the current time, and so may have been the Northern Chicken instead. It arrived served on a sheet of aluminium foil (why?) and looked nothing like what we expected. In a move of 2016 humour, we even took a photo comparing it to a photo of Shandong chicken from Google Images.

I don’t have a good recollection of the flavours but judging by the visual appearance, my general vibe of the memory of the meal, as well as a silly selfie of my then-girlfriend (now-wife) and myself making sad faces in the restaurant I can safely say it is was not the best.

I don’t think their closure is a great loss to the culinary arts.

This has been an unauthorised eulogy for:

Toi Shan Bendigo
65/67 Mitchell St, Bendigo VIC 3550

Categories
Malaysian

Rickshaw Food – Burwood NSW Restaurant Review

I stood outside this restaurant pondering the menu for a brief few seconds before a somewhat elderly lady sitting on a bench told me that I should go inside and have their lunch special. At that point I felt too in-it to back out.

We had the curry chicken with egg noodles ($17.80), which came in a lunchtime special with a ice milk tea, pictured below. These noodles were excellent, with a strong peanut flavour (would it be more accurately described as satay curry noodles?), in its thick flavourful sauce. The chicken was juicy and delicious, and the portion provided was overall quite large. Absolutely satisfied with this choice.

I can’t tell you anything about this ice milk tea, which I did not have any of. My friend seemed satisfied.

The seafood dry laksa ($17.80) was not bad, though was not on the lunch menu and thus did not come with a drink. The noodles were thicker than that of the chicken noodles, and this dish’s sauce was also good though less so, and not something that actually reminded me of ‘laksa’. The mussels were very clean.

The Malay fried chicken wings ($15.80) came extremely hot, and burnt my friend’s fingers. They took a long time to cool down to an enjoyable temperature. Once tasted, I found the external skin to be crispy and tasty, however the internal meat I felt was lacking of flavour.

The satay chicken skewers ($16.80) were a bit odd, with the satay much more in the dipping sauce than in the chicken skewers themselves. The satay dipping sauce was very good, however.

Overall
Overall the meal was good, and I would definitely recommend the chicken curry noodles with its thick delicious sauce.

I’m a bit concerned about the 7% discount for cash payments though. Is that legal?

Rickshaw Food
8B/27-31 Belmore St, Burwood NSW 2134

Categories
Café

Plunge 46 – Summer Hill NSW Restaurant Review

I respect breakfast as the most important meal of the day, both from a medical standpoint as well as a cultural standpoint – the post night shift breakfast is probably one of the things that keeps me coming back to work. Despite my respect for breakfast as an institution, I don’t necessarily believe that breakfast should be limited only to breakfast foods, like eggs, beans, and more generally a simple lack of meats made in elaborate ways. So it comes as no surprise that I am an absolute sucker for an all-day menu.

My partner and I ate from Plunge 46’s extensive all-day menu, this morning in the middle of her run of night shifts.

We had this very lovely plate of corn fritters ($22), which is a very standard dish that my partner likes, but this rendition came with some excitement. As you can see from the photo, there was not a whole lot of batter on the corn fritters. The corn kernels themselves were quite visible macroscopically without need for any additional dissection, meaning that compared to others in its category this rendition was quite corn-forward and probably a bit healthier than its competition who are mostly completely encased in batter.

We enjoyed the sour cream, the slightly smashed avocado, the tomato and all the other bits involved, particularly the red liquid, which was somewhat of a salsa-like concoction. My partner was particularly pleased by the appearance of rocket rather than the more common wilted spinach, the two occupying opposite corners in her vegetable tier list. The fritters, topped off with a well poached egg, was overall a strong showing.

The tempura fish tacos ($17.50) that I had read about on the Google reviews before I went were somewhat less exciting (although my partner did enjoy them, to be fair). I found myself eating my allocated taco quite quickly without really being able to taste anything particularly different between the mixture of cabbage, avocado, tomato in this taco compared to the corn fritter dish. Apart from a slight hint of bitterness it was hard for me to really unpack any of the flavours in my little taco that I had, almost as if I basically ate my taco on autopilot without the ability or opportunity to really understand and enjoy it. Perhaps such an assessment is not entirely fair, but I do feel like if it were great, I probably would’ve paid more attention to it.

Luckily for this Plunge 46, there are still quite a number of options on the menu that I’d like to give a go, and it is quite likely that I’ll be back in due course.

Plunge 46
46 Lackey St, Summer Hill NSW 2130

Categories
Bakery Vietnamese

Thuan Thien Bakery – North Strathfield NSW Restaurant Review

Not to be outdone by the banh mi my junior brought for me at work from Nguyen Hot Bread in Canley Vale during our last fortnight together, I picked up a variety of three options and an almond croissant to share on my way to work.

We had a selection of banhs mi. The first to be pictured and discussed is the roasted pork roll ($7), eaten by me, ultra fresh, walking through the hallway at work so that I can provide an accurate account of its quality for the internet. The bread was nice and fresh, slightly crusty on the outside and soft on the inside – no complaints or painful mouth cutting here. The filling sadly was not ideal, with the pork being really quite dry, and uninspiring (again, note that I’ve eaten it fresh in this case.) On subsequent visits the pork has actually been quite good, and I’ve now had banh mi from here at least six times.

The pate I will discuss in this subsequent paragraph dedicated to the original pork roll ($6.50), which was much better than the roast pork. Unlike most porks roll that I’ve had, the pate at Thuan Thien was very thin and spread with a spoon rather than a knife, which I didn’t find too problematic but my Vietnamese friend did not find satisfying. Whilst I agree the volume administered was on the lower end of the spectrum, she was quite disappointed by it. Luckily the standard collection of cold cuts in the original pork roll meant that there was little opportunity for error, and this is overall a pretty good roll, even eaten at our late lunch period after 6 hours in the fridge. There was no mention of the option of extra pate on the menu, but I suspect it’s something you could convince them to do for a little extra. but I now have learned to just ask for it, and it makes it all delicious.

It’s hard to know if this next roll, which I ate at lunch 6 hours after purchase, is the same roll as the roast pork roll, or in fact the BBQ pork roll ($7), which I had also ordered. I guess I should assume that it’s the BBQ pork roll which I had ordered, but it kind of looks nothing like the menu photograph, with not a smidge of crackling in site. Either way, it was surprisingly not as dry as the first roll I had that morning, so there’s a chance that it was in fact different. I should note the inclusion of red onion on this banh mi, which I feel is not that common an ingredient, whilst my friend and colleague, an influencer in her own right, decried the lack of daikon in this store’s offerings (not a problem for me.) I appreciated also the inclusion of a proper buttery Vietnamese mayonnaise, rather than margarine from a tub, which is passed off as acceptable at some establishments.

The almond croissant ($4) was pretty good. Lots of custard inside, and cheaper than Zouki.

Overall thoughts
Will I add Thuan Thien bakery into the rotation? It’s possible – but only because it’s somewhat on the way, now that I’ve started taking tolls to work and A) XCel Roll has dropped off in quality and B) Nhu Y Kings Hot Bread requires a more significant detour.

Update, mid 2025. The quality was better on every subsequent visit, and this is now my regular haunt.

Thuan Thien bakery
199 Concord Rd, North Strathfield NSW 2137

Categories
Japanese

Ryo’s Noodles – Crows Nest NSW Restaurant Review

It’s extremely rare thing for doctors to go on strike, and probably something that many in power thought would never happen again in NSW, the last time in the 1980s (led at the time by a young doctor now known as CSY) relegated to fleeting mentions in review articles in the MJA[1].

I was proud to have been a small part of the doctors’ walkout on the 8th of April this year, when, even though I wasn’t actually rostered to work that day, I attended rallies both in Western Sydney and at the Ministry of Health’s lavishly appointed headquarters (beautiful staircase in that building) at 1 Reserve Road, St. Leonards.

The protest of it all aside, it was quite nice to see a number of my friends and colleagues that I had worked with over the years, all gathered in one place to protest the untenable state of working conditions and compensation in the New South Wales public health system – a product of both successive Liberal AND Labor governments, which has led to the ongoing attrition of both junior and senior doctors from the state public health system into private practice, as well as public hospitals in other states which are able to offer better staffing, conditions, and on average 30% more in terms of remuneration. Though a Labor party win was once thought by some to be the panacea that would fix the crumbling health system, I do love a bipartisan effort at neoliberalism and keeping the workers down.

Politics aside, one of the people I ran into at the strike, at the rally, was a former frequently featured co-diner on this blog, WKS, and we took the opportunity of being on the forbidden side of the bridge to catch up over a meal at Ryo’s Noodles.

Ryo’s Noodles, I suspect, had never seen such a large turnout for lunch on a weekday, as various small groups of doctors had filled up almost their entire venue capacity, and then some, with a number of people in scrubs still waiting outside for a table even as we left.

The gyoza ($9) were pretty good, juicy, filled with pork and cabbage, fried and crispy, though possibly a little bit burnt, more burnt than I would have liked.

The karaage chicken ($12), a classic, no notes.

The ramen itself, soy sauce flavour ($20.50) I felt was kind of overhyped, and did not reach the criticisable level of the sides. Ryo’s Noodles had been part of my consciousness for the past 5 years since I first started this blog, and at the end of the day I felt that their star item was just not bad – a bit saltier than I would’ve liked, with good chaashu but otherwise definitely not life changing as some have influencers have sold it online.

Ryo’s Noodles
125 Falcon St, Crows Nest NSW 2065
(02) 9955 0225

References
1.Yong CS. The Australian Medical Association at 50 years. Med J Aust. 2012 Aug 6;197(3):182-3. doi: 10.5694/mja12.11108. PMID: 22860798.